Also, a slight disclosure: I actually haven’t blocked this jumper before taking these photos (I just gave it a heavy steaming), because I wanted to get this post out before we get into the festive posts! Please rest assured that I will be blocking it (and, if you see any bumpiness… no you don’t).

Table of Contents

• The Pattern
  • Adapted Charts for Size L
    • Chart 3
    • Chart 5 & 6 (combined)
    • Chart 7
• The Yarn
• The Knitting Process
  • Neckline
  • Short Rows
  • Colourwork
  • Hem/Cuffs
  • Sleeves
• New Techniques
• Final Thoughts

The Pattern

I was inspired to make this sweater after seeing the pumpkin sweater made by Tiny Human Knits, which was itself inspired by a commercial sweater. Just like Tiny Human Knits (or THK, as I’ll be referring to her for the rest of the post), I used the Strange Brew pattern by Tin Can Knits for the actual jumper construction. This pattern is kind of a build-your-own sweater recipe: it contains lots of different puzzle-piece instructions that you can join together to make the perfect jumper for you. I also relied heavily on the notes on THK’s Ravelry project page for her sweater, which include LOADS of information & tips for making the sweater.

Using the Strange Brew pattern, I followed the instructions for the top-down sweater in size L (which is significant, because THK’s sweater was made in size M/L, so the charts were made to suit the stitch counts for that size and I did have to adapt a couple of them for the larger size). I adapted the ribbed neckline to created a folded-over neckline (because I thought it would look cool). I also added German short rows (following THK’s instructions) underneath the neckline, on the back.

This was actually my first time making a yoked sweater (or any fitted sweater really, my jumper experience before this was limited to two, boxy Weasley jumpers…). Of course, being me, I decided to go all out with a pretty complicated colourwork situation for my first foray into sweater-making. As recommended by THK, I used the Ladderback Jacquard Technique for most of the colourwork sections (which I had practised a lot while making the two hat swatches!).

Adapted Charts for Size L

As I mentioned I had to adapt some of THK’s colourwork charts to suit the stitch count of the size I was making (L). Charts 1, 2 & 4 were all absolutely fine, so I just followed them directly from THK’s Ravelry page. For the other charts though, I did have to make a few alterations to get them to work. You can find them here (I’ve given the basic chart for each one first, then the one with red lines to indicate where I placed my ladderback stitches, for reference):

Chart 3

Chart 5 & 6 (combined)

Chart 7

The Yarn

After copious testing of various different colours and combinations (you can read more about that here), I finally settled on the following yarns/shades:

• Yarnsmiths Merino Sock, in the shade Rich Brown (2K079)
• Scheepjes Metropolis, in the shade Liverpool (065)
• King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply, in the shades Aran (046) and Willow (3942)

I wasn’t quite sure how much yarn I’d need of each colour, so I played it safe and ordered more than I thought I would need… I guess there’s some more pumpkin hats in my future, because I now have quite a lot of leftover yarn! I kept track of how much yarn I used throughout the process, so, to give you a rough idea, if you want to make your own Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater, I used the following amounts of each yarn:

Yarnsmiths Merino Sock, Rich Brown (2K079):

• 235g (3 skeins, with about 2/3 of a ball remaining).

Scheepjes Metropolis, Liverpool (065):

• 55g (2 skeins, with most of the second ball remaining).

King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply, Aran (046):

• 81g (2 skeins, with just under half of the second ball remaining)

King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply, Willow (3942):

• 8g (1 skein, with most of the ball remaining).

The Knitting Process

This project was a big challenge for me, being my first time knitting both a yoked and a colourwork sweater. It involved a lot of planning and intense thinking beforehand, but the actual knitting process went pretty smoothly, which was a relief! I did make some adaptations along the way (and, inevitably, ran into a couple of problems here and there), which I’ll talk about now:

Neckline

The original Strange Brew neckline is just a simple ribbed situation. I was 100% thinking that I would work my neckline according to the pattern when I started out, so I wanted to make sure my cast-on edge was nice and neat (and suitably stretchy). To achieve this, I opted to use the Alternating Cable Cast-On and, though it is a bit moot now, I really liked the slight picot effect it gave!

About halfway through the ribbed section, I decided to make a folded neckline instead (hence the moot-ness of my pretty picot cast-on…). I just thought that a folded neckline would make the jumper look that little bit more neat and professional, so I decided to go for it!

To make the folded neckline, I just knit double the length of rib the pattern called for (i.e. 2.5 inches instead of 1.25 inches). When I’d finished knitting the jumper, I went back with some brown yarn and used a whip stitch to secure the cast on edge to the base of the rib on the inside of the jumper (I used the first row of purl bumps as a guide). I made sure to keep my stitching loose, but neat, to preserve the stretch.

Short Rows

Like THK, I included German Short Rows in my sweater, to help it sit better. The Strange Brew pattern does contain instructions for adding opitional short rows, but they are worked after the yoke, which I didn’t really want. Instead, I opted to follow THK’s instructions and worked my short rows right after I finished the neckline (before starting the colourwork yoke), on the back of the garment.

I did, however, skip the ‘knit 1 row, purl 1 row, knit 1 row’ section from THK’s notes, just because I didn’t really want a visible purl ridge on the yoke.

Colourwork

As recommended by THK, I used the Ladderback Jacquard technique for the majority of the colourwork sections (basically anywhere where there were gaps of more than 5 stitches between a single colour). To set up my ladderback stitches, I followed this tutorial from knitdarling.com. I found that I preferred setting up the stitches by working a M1L increase purl-wise, as opposed to a backwards loop cast-on, which I also (accidentally) tried out when making my hat swatches. I purled all of my ladderback stitches throughout, to make the inside of the sweater extra neat (because, that way, all of the ladderbacks appear as knit stitches from the back).

I did run into a little bit of trouble with the increase rounds of the yoke distorting my colourwork, so I did have to do a little bit of trial and error to work out the best places to work those rows. In the end, I worked the increase rounds on the following rounds:

• Increase round 1: Row 1 of Chart 1
• Increase round 2: Row 2 of Chart 2
• Increase round 3: Row 18 of Chart 2
• Increase round 4: Row 3 of Chart 5

I also added 2 more rows of plain brown before starting the colourwork (on row 6) in Chart 1, just to suit the size L a little better.

The one real problem I ran into with this pattern was The Jog, where the colourwork is slightly offset at the beginning of the round (on mine, this was at the centre back in the yoke, then under one arm after splitting for the sleeves). The Strange Brew pattern talks about this in depth, so I was fully prepared for it, but I did get myself into a bit of a pickle with it, where I thought I’d made a mistake, so dropped down, ‘fixed’ it and then couldn’t for the life of me figure out why my colourwork wasn’t working. I stared at it for ages, trying to find the problem, then gave it to my mum, who also stared at it for ages, before she was eventually able to work out what I’d done (spoiler alert: I hadn’t made a mistake— The Jog tricked me…)! Phew.

Hem/Cuffs

The Strange Brew pattern recommends going down to the smaller needle size (2.75mm, instead of 3.50mm) for the ribbed hem/cuffs. I opted to use 3.00mm needles for my rib, instead, just so they didn’t pull in too much. 2 inches of rib ended up being about 21 rows at my gauge.

To cast off both the hem and the cuffs after the ribbed sections, I used HiyaHiya Grandma’s Stretchy Bind Off, making sure not to do it too tightly (which is a longstanding, unfortunate habit of mine). I like this cast off for rib, because it looks nice and keeps everything nice and stretchy.

Sleeves

To make sure that my charts fit the sleeves, I opted to pick up a handful more stitches than the pattern called for at the underarms: 11 and 12, respectively (before and after the centre marker), for a total of 96 stitches for each sleeve (instead of 92). I made sure to pick up the 4 extra stitches at the beginning and end of my underarm cast-on stitches, because that’s usually where you get a bit of a gap anyway. Actually, this method ended up reducing the gaps, which I meant I had less darning to do at the end of the project, so it all worked out for the best!

I worked the setup round in the white yarn, then, once that was done, continued on in colourwork, following Chart 5/6.

Things got a little trickier when it came to the sleeve decreases— there was a lot of trying on and measuring and calculating. To get sleeves that fit me, without the decreases warping the colourwork, and ending up with the right amount of stitches for the colourwork at the cuffs, I did the following, all in brown yarn:

• [Decrease round, 4 plain rounds] 7 times.
• [Decrease round, 3 plain rounds] 10 times.
• [Decrease round, 1 plain round] 1 time.

So, this gave me a total of 18 decrease rounds, which took me from 96 to 60 stitches, just as I needed. They’re more condensed than the decrease rounds in the Strange Brew pattern, but the sleeves fit me, so all is well. After the sleeve decreases were done, I worked Chart 7, before knitting the ribbed cuffs in brown, again.

New Techniques

• Alternating Cable Cast-On
• HiyaHiya Grandma’s Stretchy Bind-Off*
• Ladderback Jacquard colourwork technique*
• Following a colourwork chart*
• Colourwork in the round*
• Folded neckline (stitched down)
• German short rows*
• Knitting a yoke
• Sleeve decreases*

Final Thoughts

Oh. My. Goodness. I kind of can’t believe I made this?! It was so far out of my comfort zone and felt like such a mountain to climb, but it was actually a really fun project to make. I was very much overwhelmed initially by using the Strange Brew ‘recipe’ instead of a regular pattern that you can just follow to the letter, but it did make it super easy to customise the jumper and make sure it fit me perfectly (which is good, because it was a lot of work and I would hate to not be able to wear it after all that!). I’m proud of myself for persevering, though, and, actually, I just took things one step at a time, making adjustments when needed, following the pattern/THK’s instructions when needed (and, of course, taking a break every now and then!) and it all worked out.

While I don’t think I’ll be jumping into another colourwork sweater straight away, I really did enjoy working on this project— I think I may just have got super used to working the Ladderback Jacquard technique after the double-hat-swatch-situation, but I honestly found that the colourwork sections went faster than the plain brown sections!

This was definitely my most ambitious Project Knitwear so far, but I also think it might be the most successful: it turned out exactly how I imagined it, which makes me so unbelievably proud!

Also…. a special thank you to Tiny Human Knits for providing such extensive notes on her Ravelry project page for her jumper: it has truly been my Pumpkin Sweater Bible over the last couple of months!

If you're interested...

You can find the Strange Brew Sweater pattern by Tin Can Knits here.

You can find the project page for the Strange Brew Pumpkin by Tiny Human Knits on Ravelry here.

You can find the project page for my Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater on Ravelry here.

Gemma

xxx

The first stage of any knitting project is swatching (sigh), because it’s important to test out gauge, yarns and colours (so I’m told). In the Strange Brew book, there is a pattern for a colourwork hat called the Anthology Hat. The pattern even suggests that you treat the hat as your ‘swatch’, thereby testing out both the yarn and your gauge AND being left with a wearable item by the end of it. As someone who quite literally despises swatching, this seemed like a great plan for me! So, in swatching for my soon-to-be Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater, I made two colourwork hats (hence why this is Project Knitwear #6.5— technically, these are wearable knits, but they’re not the knitwear item I have lined up for the next instalment). In this post, I’ll be giving you all the details for both hats, chatting about my experience making them AND talking you through my final colour/yarn choices for my sweater.

Table of Contents

• The Pattern
• Hat #1: King Cole Merino Blend
  • Mini Review: King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply
  • Hat #1 as a Swatch: Thoughts
• Hat #2: Scheepjes Metropolis
  • Mini Review: Scheepjes Metropolis
  • Hat #2 as a Swatch: Thoughts
• Ladderback Jacquard Technique
• To Pom, or Not To Pom
• New Techniques
• Final Thoughts (and Final Colour Decisions)

The Pattern

As I mentioned, I used the Anthology Hat pattern by Tin Can Knits. This is a simple, customisable hat pattern, that features a ribbed brim and a large, plain section for colourwork. For both hats, I made the size ‘Adult SM‘ and followed the instructions for sock weight yarn (the pattern also provides instructions for Aran and DK weight yarns). I opted for a regular (not fold-over brim) and used an amalgamation of the charts provided by Tiny Human Knits on Ravelry for the colourwork section.

I followed the chart above (my amalgamation of the originals), then followed rows 1-4 of Chart 4 (from Tiny Human Knits).

Because I wanted a little more of the cream shade at the top of the hat than I had space for in my colourwork section, I kept knitting with the cream shade for the first 3 rows of the crown decreases on both hats, before switching back to the brown shade and finishing off the hats.

On her Ravelry project page, Tiny Human Knits suggests using the Ladderback Jacquard Technique for the colourwork. This is a technique I’ve never come across before, so I thought I could give it a go when making these hats, to practise ahead of the larger (more intimidating) sweater project.

Hat #1: King Cole Merino Blend

For my first hat, I used King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply (which is curiously also known as King Cole Anti-Tickle Merino Blend 4 Ply), a 75% merino/25% nylon fingering weight yarn, in the following shades:

• Chocolate (023)
• Cinnamon (3298)
• Aran (046)
• Willow (3942)

I knit the hat on 3.5mm needles (2.75mm for the ribbing) and used a basic, long tail cast-on. This cast-on wasn’t the best choice- truthfully, I really thought it was a stretchy cast-on, but apparently that is not the case! This hat’s definitely a little tight along the cast-on edge, but I guess we live and learn. I also added a pom pom to the top of this hat (more on that later— see ‘To Pom or Not To Pom‘).

For the colourwork section of this hat, I followed my amalgamated colour chart, but only did 1 plain brown row (instead of 2) between the chevron pattern and the pumpkins, and the pumpkins and the top white pattern, respectively. I increased the size of these stripes in Hat #2, because I thought the pattern looked a little cramped in this one.

Mini Review: King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply

Overall, I liked this yarn. I thought it worked up really neatly in the colourwork sections and doesn’t have much of a ‘halo’ (which I like). It is a soft yarn, but it’s not the softest I’ve used. I also found that the thickness (squidgy-ness?) of the knitted material drastically reduced after blocking, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I did find it a little disappointing at the time.

There’s a pretty good range of colours available for this yarn, but, unfortunately, it didn’t quite have all of the shades I wanted for this project. I purchased this yarn from Wool Warehouse, at £3.89 per 50g ball, so it is a pretty affordable option, which is good to know!

Hat #1 as a Swatch: Thoughts

My main takeaway from this swatch was that the colours weren’t quite what I was looking for: the orange was a little too bright, the brown a little too dark and the cream a little too white. The combination just felt ever so slightly too in-your-face (dare I say, garish…?) for the sweater.

I did go back and look at the colour options for the King Cole yarn, but, as I mentioned, it just didn’t have the slightly more muted, warmer colours that I was looking for, so I had to broaden my search a little. That led me to Scheepjes, which, in turn, led to…

Hat #2: Scheepjes Metropolis

I found some great-looking shades in Scheepjes Metropolis (another fingering weight, 75% merino/25% nylon blend yarn), so I decided to make a second swatch-hat using that instead. For the new hat, I used the following shades of Metropolis:

• Valencia (062)
• Mumbai (068)
• Liverpool (065)
• Vancouver (028)

Just like with Hat #1, I knit this project on 3.5mm needles (2.75mm for the ribbing). However, I used a German Twisted Cast-On for this project, which made the cast-on edge a lot stretchier— much better for a hat!

For the colourwork, I followed my amalgamated chart exactly (i.e. with 2 plain rows above and below the pumpkin motifs). This did mean that my colourwork section was slightly longer, but I have a relatively big head (sigh), so that’s no problem.

Mini Review: Scheepjes Metropolis

Okay, not to be dramatic, but I’m kind of obsessed with this yarn. It’s SO soft. Truly, I was trying to describe to my mum what this yarn felt like to knit with and the only fitting adjective I could come up with was ‘buttery’. It’s a buttery yarn. It’s ever so slightly heathered, but not in a dramatic way at all- more of a solid-colours-with-a-little-more-dimension kind of way. It was really good for colourwork and blocked nicely I feel like it didn’t thin out quite as much as the King Cole.

Again, though, the colour range caused me problems— there are so many shades that I thought I had hit the jackpot, but some colours have very few options (e.g. brown, which is a big problem for this project) and others have lots of variations, but no ‘neutral’ option, if that makes sense (I’m thinking about a nice, basic cream shade here!).

Hat #2 as a Swatch: Thoughts

I was SO confident as I was knitting this— I truly thought I’d stumbled on the perfect yarn for this project, but now I’m just… not so sure. First and foremost, I’m just not a fan of Vancouver (the green shade). It feels very lurid to me, particularly alongside the other, more muted colours. I’m also not crazy about the cream shade I chose (Mumbai)— it actually has little specks of a kind of… hot pink shade in it? So in some lights it looks cream (which I want!) and in others it looks pink (which I don’t want!). I LOVE the pumpkin shade (Liverpool), and I think the brown is more what I was after than the King Cole version, but when I look at them together, the hat just looks a little… muted to me? I feel like there’s not enough contrast between the brown and orange shades, which I think is important for this design. I’m disappointed, because I really thought this yarn/colour combo was THE one, but I guess it’s back to the drawing board a little bit in terms of colours.

Ladderback Jacquard Technique

So, as I mentioned, Tiny Human Knits recommends using the Ladderback Jacquard Technique for carrying the floats in the colourwork sections of the sweater, because often there are large stretches between the different colours in the chart. This is a technique I’d never heard of before (I’m not particularly experienced at colourwork), so I figured it would be a good idea to give the technique I try while I made my swatch-hats.

Weirdly, I really enjoyed this technique— I didn’t find it too tricky (once you’ve set up the ladderback stitches, you’re away!) and I always worry about carrying the floats loosely enough, so it definitely helped to ease some of my colourwork anxiety. In fact, for the first hat, I think it went really well for me— I didn’t make any mistakes (that went unnoticed and uncorrected, at least) and I think it looks really neat from both the right and wrong sides of the work. I actually enjoyed the whole process— I flew through it!

With the second hat… I got a little cocky. I became weirdly obsessed with finishing the second hat as quickly as possible, so I was definitely rushing, which probably didn’t help the situation. If you look closely, you can see a rogue ladderback stitch that I forgot was a ladderback stitch and promptly knit as a regular stitch, increasing my overall stitch count and interrupting my colourwork pattern. The worst part is that it was in the lurid green shade! Sigh. Moral of the story: don’t rush colourwork. I will definitely be remembering that when I make my jumper!

To Pom, or Not To Pom

When I made Hat #1, I was fresh-faced and optimistic, so I envisaged the final hat with a big, multicolour pom pom on top, containing all four of the colours used in the hat itself. With the help of one of my handy bobble makers (the blue one (which I believe is 8.5cm), from this pack), I made the pom pom of my dreams, then promptly remembered all the woes that pom poms bring with them. Why are they never actually secure? Why are threads always falling out even though I tied them TIGHT with ALL my strength AND ran a needle through them? Why are they never as big and puffy as I dream they will be? Why do I have to trim off half the pom pom to get it looking like a pom pom? Why do I have to have the skills of an award-winning hair stylist to trim it and keep it round? Sigh. Pom poms. I love them in theory, and I love how they look, but they drive me insane.

Anyway, I made the pom pom for Hat #1 using all 4 colours that I used in the hat: brown, orange, cream and green. To make sure the colours were evenly distributed throughout the pom pom, I held all 4 strands (one of each colour) together as I wrapped it, so there were no patches of colour (this also had the added benefit of making the process a lot quicker, which was a win).

To attach the pom pom to the hat, I used a trick my mum taught me: using a button on the inside. This is great because it means you can easily remove and reattach the pom pom at any point, so the hat can still be washed (without a pom pom massacre), or, if you’re not feeling particularly frivolous one day, you can go pom-less. To do this, you just thread the ends of the pom pom through the top of the hat, from the outside to the inside. Next, you thread those ends through a large button (on the inside of the hat, still), pull them tight, then tie them to each other. This keeps the pom pom secure on top of the hat, but makes it super easy to remove it when needed. And, before you ask— no, you cannot feel the button (unless you have no hair, in which case, you kind of can and I apologise for that).

As I was making Hat #2, I was already starting to dread making another pom pom. It was only once I finished the hat that I remembered not every hat has a pom pom, and, seeing as this was my hat, the decision was entirely up to me! Wow, isn’t free will just great? Anyway, I left this hat pom-less, which I think suits it more sophisticated, muted colour palette anyway (or so I tell myself).

New Techniques

As this is (technically) a Project Knitwear post, I wanted to document the techniques that I used while making these hats: both the new techniques, that I tried for the first time, and the ones I’ve met before, but had an opportunity in this project to practise (as always, previously encountered techniques are marked with an *):

• Long tail cast-on*
• German twisted cast-on*
• Ladderback Jacquard colourwork technique
• Following a colourwork chart*
• Colourwork in the round*

Final Thoughts (and Final Colour Decisions)

Overall, I enjoyed making these hats. It was great practising the Ladderback Jacquard technique (even if I did get a little ahead of myself with it) and I did really enjoy knitting the colourwork sections. It’s not something I’d want to do all the time (it’s much harder to watch TV and knit when you’re working with colours!), but it is pretty addictive and SO rewarding.

Weirdly enough, these are actually my first ever knitted hats! They were so quick and easy to make, so I don’t think they’ll be my last. I really liked following the Anthology ‘recipe’ by Tin Can Knits- even though it felt a little overwhelming at first to have so much creative control, it definitely opens up a whole world of hat-related possibilities!

In terms of my final yarn/colour decisions for my Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater (aka the reason we’re all actually here), I had to do a little bit more testing and trialling before I found a combination that I was happy with. In the end, I’ve settled on a combination of 3 different yarn brands (because I’m a very minimal person, evidently):

• Yarnsmiths Merino Sock, in the shade Rich Brown (2K079)
• Scheepjes Metropolis, in the shade Liverpool (065)
• King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply, in the shades Aran (046) and Willow (3942)

The brown was the shade I was struggling the most with, until I remembered that I had a ball of the Yarnsmiths leftover from another project (which you will eventually be seeing!). Sure enough, the Rich Brown colourway was EXACTLY the warm, mid-brown shade I was looking for, plus the yarn has the exact same composition (75% merino/25% nylon) as the other two yarns, so everything worked out perfectly! The contrast between the new brown shade and the Scheepjes orange shade is much better, so I’ll be using that yarn for the pumpkins/orange sections of the pattern. With the warmer brown shade, the cream King Cole shade looks a little less white, so it’ll be perfect for my sweater. Alongside the other yarns, the original King Cole shade of green works perfectly— it’s not too lurid, but brings a nice touch of leafy green to the pattern.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading all about my hat-swatch adventures! I’ve ordered all the yarn for my Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater, so (fingers crossed) that post should be coming to the blog later on this season! If you want to be notified as soon as it goes live, you can subscribe to my newsletter!

If you're interested...

You can find the Anthology Hat pattern here.

You can find the Ravelry project page for the Strange Brew Pumpkin sweater by Tiny Human Knits here.

You can find my Ravelry project page for Hat #1 (King Cole) here.

You can find my Ravelry project page for Hat #2 (Scheepjes) here.

Gemma

xxx